


Things Looked At But Not Seen

by die_traumerei



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types
Genre: Action/Adventure, Bisexual Steve Rogers, Clint/Nat if you squint, Cryptography, Friends to Lovers, Gen, Golden Age (Comics), Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mystery, OC villain - Freeform, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Protective Tony Stark, Steve knows the entire Sherlock Holmes Canon, the romance is the b plot, this one's got a plot
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-11-02
Updated: 2014-11-06
Packaged: 2018-02-23 21:36:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,080
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2556617
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/die_traumerei/pseuds/die_traumerei
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There's a new villain in town, and this one likes making the Avengers work for his messages.  From stupid games to something more serious, he proves to be toying with them specifically, hitting closer and closer to home; all while they're still trying to figure out who he is and what the hell is going on.  Codes to be broken, foot-soldiers to be fought, a citizenry that's probably right to not be entirely enamored of this whole Avengers thing, and seriously, why can't this guy choose a not-terrible code name?  Because he has a terrible code name.</p><p>As if all that's not enough, Bucky Barnes seems to be falling in love with his best friend.  Of course.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Caesar

**Author's Note:**

> This is my attempt at writing a good old-fashioned Golden Age comics story, complete with ridiculous villain. Only in my version, the gay romance isn't so much subtext as it is the B-plot. (Or parallel A-plot, we'll see what happens!)
> 
> I'll update the tags and characters as they are needed -- this is my first time posting a story that isn't completed, although it's pretty well outlined. I don't imagine the overall rating will change; if anything, I may end up adjusting it downward. This also means I won't be doing like-clockwork updates; I'll aim for once a week, but it will be a glorious adventure for all concerned.
> 
> MASSIVE THANKS FOREVER to Zisl for being a good and patient beta-reader and ensuring that I do not use the same word a dozen times in a single paragraph :)

Steve had been following for so long, searching, unraveling the thread, until one day, he wasn't following, wasn't chasing. It was a day no different than the ones before, until it became the day they both started to go home.

He found him when he was asleep, and that was how he knew Bucky (The Winter Soldier? Someone who was a bit of both, really, and still his dearest friend) wanted to be found. He lay on his side on soft grass, head pillowed on one arm. He’d always slept on his stomach, before.

They were north, so far north, ancient mountains capped with snow in the distance. They glowed — everything glowed — with the low light of the sun. It was near midnight, but daylight still spilled across the land. Wildflowers dotted the field, and Steve noticed that one had gotten tangled in Bucky’s hair.

He knelt, careful to make noise, moving his shield so that it would rattle and give him away.

Bucky’s eyes opened slowly, and he didn’t look surprised to see Steve there.

Steve stretched out beside him, looking up at the blue-white sky, all that sheltered them.

“We didn’t have a memorial for you. Didn’t even wake you,” he said without preamble. “No time. Well, I tried to get drunk, but I can’t. Not unless I neck a bottle of vodka or something.”

Bucky watched him, and did not run away.

“No passing bells,” Steve said, still talking to the sky. “No masses said — remember that? When Mam died? You made sure everything was taken care of, because you knew she believed. I shoulda done that for you.”

Bucky laughed, harsh. “That only gets you out of purgatory, I’d’ve needed something stronger. Besides, I don’t believe.”

“You think I do? But it’s what you do. And we didn’t have none of that for you.” Steve liked talking to the sky. It didn’t look at him like Sam did when he prevaricated. (Of course he liked talking to Sam too. But sometimes it was easier to open his heart elsewhere.)

“I remember.” Bucky’s voice was soft and rough, the low timbre made lower by time and tiredness and who knew what else. “Your Mam. You. Brooklyn. England. And after.”

Steve turned his head then, and met eyes that were not Bucky’s, not the Winter Soldier’s, not proud Sergeant Barnes’ the night before he shipped out. This was someone new, but then Steve was someone new too. He was skinny Steve Rogers and Captain America and the guy who could touch-type so fast Stark was genuinely confused until Steve rolled his eyes and mentioned typewriters. He had fought aliens and been kissed by a KGB-trained assassin-turned-actually-pretty-good-friend and he volunteered at the VA every other Saturday when the world wasn’t being blown up. (The rest of his Saturdays he played video games with whoever was in town that weekend.)

Bucky’s eyes were shifting, and he was starting to shake when Steve reached out and touched his shoulder in kindness for the first time in just under three years or possibly 70-something, depending on how you were counting. “Hey. How the hell do you always find the best spot to sleep?”

Bucky  stilled ,  then rolled onto his stomach — nearly touching Steve now, the way they  wer e lined up together on the field. “You’d be able to do it too, if you ever stopped and thought before dropping.”

“Never gonna happen. Bed in my spare room’s pretty nice, though. Not too soft.”

“Huh. I’ll have to try it out.”

They lay there together for a little while. The sun dipped closer to the horizon, but there was still a long, low light. The angles were all wrong, and they made Bucky look different.

“I’m not okay, Steve,” Bucky finally said, when the sun had nearly set and sky was pink and everything was light. “Everything’s all mixed up.” He closed his eyes. “I thought remembering would…fix it. It doesn’t.”

“Is that why you kept running?”

Bucky shrugged. “I run. It’s what I do. But…never ran from you before. Always to you. Time to try that.” He opened his eyes, met Steve’s. “I can remember things, but not always what they mean. It comes and goes. Sometimes I forget Bucky, and just become the asset. You’re not safe. You gotta take me someplace where you’ll be safe. Where they can make sure there’s…there’s nothing left that’d hurt you. Or anybody else. Where I can figure out all of who I am.” He bit his lip. “Gonna have to try your spare room another time.”

Steve reached out for him then, gathered him close. This would have a different meaning many years later, but right then — he was holding his best friend again, the two of them transformed so much and still fitting together. “I’m safe. Always _been_ safe with you. But I’ll take you to…to good people.” And God, what’s changed that he can say Tony Stark (because that’s who he’s starting with) was good people? The fact that they knew each others’ greatest fears and that they’d fought together and Tony never asked why Steve sometimes comes into his workshop late at night to watch him work because neither of them could sleep. That’s part of it.

“It’s gonna be…” Okay? None of them were okay, not in any meaningful way. But the Avengers loved and had fun and Steve was awesome at playing Portal, and there was a girl he met through Sam who had spent years slicing patterns into her thighs, who had planned out ten different ways to kill herself and so maybe no one out there was one hundred percent okay. “Anything you need, we can get it. Anything to help you.”

Bucky nodded and tucked his head against Steve’s chest, and they rested there in the midnight summer sun.

 

* * *

 

**Two Years Later**

 

Two men, walking down the street. It was Brooklyn on a summer evening; half the damn city was walking down some street or another, so this was not a strange thing. Neither man looked particularly strange either; one blond and one with dark hair worn long, just brushing his shoulders. Perhaps a little more muscular than was strictly in fashion at the moment, but then again, to not be in fashion was in fashion. They wore ballcaps (Gotham Girls Roller Derby and a local brewery) and light jackets against air that was not quite hinting at an autumn snap just yet. Hands in pockets, they ambled, two men on the way home from dinner, on their way out for the night, on a walk just because it was the Year of Our Lord Two Thousand And Eighteen and everything was bathed in golden evening light, and just because.

There was no way, unless one was very clever, to realize that the blond man was Captain America, one Steven Grant Rogers. And it would take a _truly_ clever person to realize that his companion was the Winter Soldier. (It would take a clever person with a rather high security clearance to realize that he was also James Buchanan Barnes, who was supposed to be lying  buried in the snow in Austria, and who very demonstrably was not.) Most people don't notice these things though; not because they are stupid but because there are usually more pressing things to worry about than a superhero and his best friend walking past you on a street.

No one  other than the two of them knew that this wasn't just a happy, lazy amble. This was the deal; the agreement. When the bad days hit,  it meant Bucky spent all day curled up in bed and hiding under the quilt, his frame shaking with memories, his voice choked off with weeping. Steve sat  with him  patiently, making Bucky drink water and eat a little something –  delicious, spicy, strange foods,  nothing like what the asset was fed – and made sure he knew he wasn't riding this out utterly alone. After those days, when the memories folded back into Bucky's mind and he finished crying, when he'd calmed and taken a warm shower and got dressed again – they left the house and walked. Sometimes just around the block, sometimes further, as Bucky needed, but they would stretch and go out into the  world ,  mark another battle won.

Bucky ambled along, leading as subtly as the dancer he once was. “Want to go out tomorrow?” he asked, nudging Steve with his shoulder. “It's been a few days.”

“Only if you promise to at least _think_ about giving higher than a six out of ten,” Steve said. They had begun working their way through every diner in Manhattan, starting at the southeast corner  and working their way north and west. Their therapists had agreed that they should have a project. Steve reckoned they probably intended for the two of them to build something together, and he and Bucky had concocted this idea almost as a joke, but it had been received so enthusiastically that they carried through. And it _was_ fun.

“I always think about that,” Bucky said reasonably. “And, someday, someplace'll earn it.”

Steve rolled his eyes. He'd already assigned two nines and a ten. “I could take you to the Ritz and you'd give it a six.”

“I'd have to dress up to go to the Ritz, so yes.” Bucky looked exceedingly smug. There were times when he was pure Bucky Barnes, with not a whit of the Winter Soldier, or even the boy who went to war, to be seen.

Steve had recently begun praying again. It was mostly to say thank you.

Bucky turned them round the next corner, not ready to be far from the safety of their little two-bed, despite his easy, teasing ways.

“Hey, I found this earlier. Remember these?” Steve fished the little puzzle out of his pocket and handed it to Bucky. It was red and white plastic, cheap even compared to the versions they'd played with as kids, but the white tiles, numbered one to fifteen, slid smoothly in their frame.

“Yeah! You won one at some church thing, didn't you?” Bucky smiled, sliding the tiles around, scrambling and unscrambling the numbers. “I used to be good at this.”

“You were. I never had the patience for it.” Steve nudged Bucky's shoulder with his. “They were all over Morningside Heights this morning, some promotional thing. Keep it,” he added, when Bucky went to hand it back. “Still don't have the patience for the thing.”

“Thanks.” Bucky slipped it into his pocket. He spent the rest of the night scrambling the numbers and solving them while they sprawled on the sofa and listened to baseball. (Phillies vs the Braves, to ensure that neither of them gave a damn about the outcome.)

 

* * *

 

It was Natasha who noticed the messages on the back of the puzzle. At six AM Steve had stumbled into his kitchen to find Bucky had already made coffee, presumably for the absolutely pristine Black Widow who sat at their kitchen table.

“Um. Good morning?” he said, intensely glad that he'd slept in the boxers that weren't mostly holes.

“Steve,” she nodded, and turned back to Bucky. “Honestly, I was almost ashamed _for_ Hydra. They weren't even a splinter cell, it was more like they were...fans, or something. Sad, sad fans. Who were terrible at everything.”

Bucky cracked a cold smile. “Still, one less  group to worry about. And if you've gotta haul all the way out to Yonkers, at least you got an easy bust out of it.”

“Bucky, we flew to Hong Kong in a Stark luxury jet in a few hours last week, you do not get to complain about leaving the boroughs,” Steve said, having downed half his cup of coffee already in an attempt to feel human again. “Hydra cell, Nat?”

She snorted. “ _Barely_ . A child could've taken them out. Nice drive out there, though, and I get to have coffee with my two favorite super-soldiers on the way back.” She grinned, far too cheerily, and Steve thought about pointing out that they were the only two super-soldiers she knew, but it was too early for even obvious jokes.

Bucky flipped the 15-puzzle along the fingers of his left hand, movements smooth and fluid. Steve made a mental note to find more like it – little worry stones, something for Bucky to do with his hands if he started to feel edgy. (Edgier than usual. Steve liked the concept of having a new normal, but it hurt to get used to, some days.)

“Oh, hey, you got one too. What's it say on the back of yours?” Nat asked, pulling a stack of puzzles out of one of the little boxes clipped to her belt.

“Huh?” Bucky laid his down on the table facedown. It was faint, but a block of letters could be made out in ink just a few shades darker than the red plastic.

Natasha laid hers out as well – one was a double of Bucky's, but the other two were different. Steve leaned over, interest piqued (and coffee finished).

  


FXJZO VMQL

QEFPF PGRPQ QEBYB DFKKF KD

JLOBD XJBPQ LZLJB

  


“Substitution cipher?” he asked, and looked over at Bucky, who nodded and stretched behind him to grab a pad of paper and two pencils, tearing off a sheet and handing it to Steve.

“I'll take A through M,” Steve said, writing the letter down one side of sheet in order. Bucky nodded, the two of them clearly having done this together before.

“What on earth are you doing?” Nat asked, peering over as Bucky began filling in his sheet with N = 0, O = 2, P = 4.

“Frequency analysis,” he said, clearly distracted enough to not notice Natasha's eyeroll. She pulled her phone out, but he was busy finishing the sheet and decided not to care what insults she was inevitably tweeting about them. “Not really enough letters to get it good, but worth trying.”

“Try it with D equals A?” Steve suggested, looking over their work. “Huh. A true Caesar.” They looked at each other, nodded in unison, and set to work, each taking a different cipher.

“'I am crypto'?” Steve said, having tackled the shortest one first. “Well, that's...not really what I expected.”

“'This is just the beginning',” Bucky read out from his own sheet.

“'More games to come',” Natasha added, hot on his heels, and gave them both her best dead-eyed stare when they gaped at her. “Oh come on, it's been almost a day, the internet probably solved it thirty seconds after the first one dropped.”

Steve looked down at his work, and whimpered a little. “All that training.”

“We used to be able to finish the analysis in under a minute,” Bucky moaned.

“Oh, get over it. You were using Enigma and stuff, anyway,” Natasha said, flicking down the screen.

“That was the Germans,” Steve corrected, and winced at the glare Bucky sent him. “What! It's been declassified for decades! They've made _movies_ about it.”

“Still.” Bucky frowned, flipping the little puzzles over. “Is this something we need to worry about?”

Steve allowed himself a brief, wonderful moment to feel warm all over at that 'we'. Bucky had hesitated to join the Avengers – still wouldn't properly call himself one, not yet – but he was one of them in his own way. Part of Steve's team, again.

“Not yet,” Natasha decided. “Nothing to say it's anything other than some publicity stunt. He or she needs a better code name, though.”

“You would know, Black Widow.”

“Bite me, Captain America.”

Bucky just looked smug, and went to make more coffee.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bucky Barnes is a die-hard fan of Gotham Girls roller derby and you will not convince me otherwise.
> 
> (Yes, I know there aren't really enough letters enciphered to do a proper frequency analysis by hand, but shh, super-soldier brains. In theory, most of the cyphers I'll be presenting should be solvable, if you want to try your hand at them.)
> 
> I am on tumblr, and you should come hang out with me there: dietraumerei.tumblr.com


	2. The Dancing Men

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Another puzzle from Crypto appears, but this one carries a little something extra with it. (TW for very mild violence and injury -- honestly, it wouldn't even raise Frederic Wertham's eyebrow, but it's there.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have writer's block, so here, have a chapter! Many thanks, as ever, to Zisl for beta-ing :)
> 
> No real schedule for these going up, but eh, let's say something like one or two chapters a week?

All in all, it was a pretty awful day, Steve later decided. It had started just past midnight when, for a change, it was Steve who woke in terror, with Bucky's hands on his shoulders, rough voice begging him to wake up.

“Sorry...sorry...”

“Hey, what're you always telling me?” Bucky said, pulling him into a rough hug. (Steve was grounded by contact, by hugs and touches and Bucky's hand at the back of his neck. And thank God they hadn't both woken in a panic that night. Bucky couldn't stand to be touched, had to be calmed with voice and space. Steve was selfish enough to be grateful for the freely-given comfort.)

“Not to leave your dirty socks everywhere?” He worked on slowing his breathing as Bucky laughed, so deep in his chest that it was more vibration than sound.

“No apologies, dipshit. If it's the rule for me, it's the rule for you.”

Steve sighed, and rested his head on Bucky's shoulder. “Still. I'm okay.”

“Is that go back to sleep okay, or stare into the darkness okay?” Bucky nodded at the guilty look on Steve's face. “'S what I thought. How about popcorn and cocoa okay?”

“Bucky, no. Go to sleep, I'll be fine reading or something,” Steve protested, leaning back out of the embrace. “I promise.”

Bucky shook his head. “I know, but.” He shrugged and looked away. “Can't say I really want to sleep either.”

“Oh, Buck...” Steve touched Bucky's shoulder, feather-light and for just a moment.

“Shut up. We'll put the sofa cushions on the floor and everything.” Bucky squeezed Steve's forearms one more time before taking himself off to the kitchen, padding softly through their darkened apartment.

They had managed to doze off just before dawn – Steve on the stripped sofa, Bucky half-lying on the cushions on the floor – and both woke feeling unrested and sore. A large pot of coffee only got them awake enough to stumble onto the subway and, from there, to Avengers Tower. At least Tony consistently had enough espresso on hand to keep an army going.

Bucky briefly considered asking for amphetamines just the same. The fact that he might actually get them was the only thing that kept him sipping his coffee while everyone else filed in for the more-or-less-weekly check-in and Mario Kart tournament.

They'd beaten Tony there (and he lived like three floors away and didn't even need to get properly _dressed_ so what the hell? Bucky decided to not leave him any coffee in revenge), but Nat and Clint were already neatly arranged on a sofa with their legs tangled together.

“Got you a new toy,” Nat said, and tossed Bucky a small, shiny cube. Like the 15-puzzle it was strong plastic, silver this time. It was smooth on five sides, with little dancing stick figures nearly covering the sixth.

“More from Crypto?” Bucky guessed, turning it slowly in his hands. There were seams just barely detectable on a few of the edges, but otherwise it gave no indication of being anything other than a bit of pretty.

Natasha shrugged. “He did promise more. So far no one's come forward to try to sell something, so whatever it is, he's playing a long game.” It had been a week since the last puzzle, and the internet had been abuzz, but nothing had been turned up relating to who this Crypto was or even where the puzzles were coming from.

“Another substitution cipher?” Bucky guessed, handing the box to Steve, who grinned when he got a closer look at the little figures scratched on the surface.

“Yes, and an easy one. They're from a Sherlock Holmes story.” He looked up at a variety of confused looks. “Oh, come on, it's one of the better ones, even. None of you have any excuse.”

“Nerd,” Clint announced. “JARVIS, I assume Steve's fellow nerds solved this in record time?”

“A number of blogs have posted the ciphertext in the last several hours,” JARVIS announced. “Most of them refer to themselves as Baker Street Irregulars, so it may be inferred that they are fellow fans. The figurines do indeed attribute the cubes to Crypto, and go on to inform that the cube is a puzzle-box, and must be opened for the next stage of the game.”

“How is being aware of maybe the most famous detective in the English canon a nerd thing now?” Steve muttered, and Bucky rolled his eyes.

“Has anyone opened the box yet?” Natasha asked.

“Several people claim to have done so, but have not yet published the method. Apparently that would ruin the fun.”

“Well, it would,” Tony announced, finally showing up precisely five minutes after the agreed-upon time. Steve had gotten tired of glaring at him about a month back, and anyway, what did it matter? “JARVIS, anything show up on scans? We can test the new beamline.”

“Sir, would that not spoil the fun?”

“JARVIS, you are my creation. You scanning it is simply an extension of my intellect doing the same thing. Or something. No, it would not spoil the fun.”

“Indeed, sir. Captain Rogers, if you could place the box on the coffee table for a moment, please.”

JARVIS finished the scan in a few moments, and sent the results to the main screen, where Tony went to mutter and make things happen with pretty colors. Natasha picked the box up and frowned at it.

“It's familiar, isn't it?” Bucky asked quietly, and she looked up for a moment to nod.

Steve leant forward at that, watching her fingertips delicately trace the lines of the box, tapping here and there. “Russian?”

“Well, Soviet,” Natasha allowed, giving one surface a sharp tap and flipping the box over in the next instant. “Got it!”

The bottom cracked, but didn't open, and she huffed a curse.

“Nearly got it,” Bucky said, frowning. Steve could practically _see_ memory knit into another, like a tapestry being repaired, thread joining two cut yarns and –

“Got it,” Bucky said, having pushed in just the right place so that the bottom opened, the seemingly smooth metallic surface splitting into six wedges and spiraling open. “Oh, pretty.”

“Now how the fuck did he get a design that came from the Red Room,” Steve asked, regarding the little box where it lay on Bucky's palm. He carefully did not notice how Bucky had gone several shades paler. He'd learned long ago that comfort, touch, any attention at all when a new memory slotted back into place was unwelcome.

“Elementary my dear --”

“Shut up, Clint.”

* * *

It was all just bad luck. Two minutes earlier and everything would have been fine. An hour earlier, and the box would have just been sitting there, abandoned in favor of playing Mario Kart while JARVIS ran down all the initial tracking to try and find this Crypto. (As well as monitoring the rate at which people were solving the box and flagging up any particularly interesting findings.) But it was that particular moment, just a bit past mid-afternoon, that Bucky picked the little box up again and ran clever fingers across the dancing men, tapped, turned, and opened the box again. He flicked it shut, frowned when he felt the plastic warm too quickly in his hand (right-handed, he'd always been right-handed and no matter how good Hydra tech was it wasn't – quite – a match for human dexterity).

And that's when it blew.

As explosions went, it was a relatively small one, and he instinctively curled around the box, metal hand coming up to cup the other, so that his hands and his stomach bore the brunt of the blast, such as it was.

“Bucky!” Steve was there instantly, kneeling beside him while he was still just a little too much in shock to react. He looked around, quick, assessing – Nat and Clint had drawn guns from...somewhere...and Tony was yelling at JARVIS to shut the tower down, lock them up tight, like what was going to happen? Other random things blowing up? Could happen. Anything could happen.

“Bucky,” Steve repeated, and they were both shaking, but Bucky couldn't stop, couldn't _stop_ was everyone safe? They were supposed to be safe, was Steve safe? Teeth chattering, he shrank away, scanning the room for further danger.

“Shhh, shh. Bucky. Bucky, focus.” Steve's voice was deep – always deep, since sometime in his fourteenth year, when his voice finally stopped cracking and settled into this timbre that was utterly ridiculous on him when he was five-foot-shit.

The memory helped him come back, and Steve's hands curled around his shoulders, that voice that had followed him (or that he had followed, to be honest) for so much of his life.

“'m okay. Stop fussing,” he mumbled, closing his eyes and curling up, concentrating on breathing and not shaking.

“Are you hurt?” Steve's voice shook, and Bucky uncurled slightly. The adrenaline spiking through his system meant that nothing hurt yet, but he knew he'd burnt his flesh hand at least. The t-shirt he was wearing was pretty well written-off, but his stomach didn't feel too bad.

“Okay. It'll be okay,” Steve murmured, and Bucky wondered which of them he was reassuring. “Stay with me, Buck. I've got you, you're safe, just keep breathing and stay with me.”

Bucky managed to open his eyes and meet Steve's and oh, the worry he found there. It was...he felt warm for a moment, the best kind of warm, before he huffed and glared a little, because this was them after all. “'m _fine_.”

“Uh huh. Anything left behind?” Tony was kneeling by them now as well, carefully not too close, a first-aid kit in one hand.

Bucky uncurled his hand, wincing at the angry burn that covered most of his palm, a single shard of plastic buried into the fleshy bit just above his wrist. The box was still there, blackened and with half of it blown out, but largely still intact.

“Oh good, we're dealing with a moron who leaves traces.” Tony was usually sarcastic, but Bucky hadn't ever heard him speak this coldly before. There was _anger_ in Stark's voice, and a promise of – well – avenging. Tony snapped on a latex glove from the kit and gingerly took the box from Bucky, slipping it into a clean bag. He pulled out the shard of plastic, Steve moving immediately to press a pad of cotton onto the cut, holding it tightly in place.

“Sir. You should know that this is not an isolated incident.” JARVIS' voice was calm as ever. Familiar. Everything was familiar – familiar to his new life, where he was Bucky Barnes, and no longer the asset. The asset had never had anyone get angry on his behalf. “Minor explosions have been reported all over the city, all of them traced to similar puzzle-boxes. I have taken the liberty of informing Agents Romanoff and Barton of this, but they insist on continuing their perimeter check.”

“Is anyone hurt?” Steve asked. He sat back on his heels, though he stayed close enough that Bucky could feel the heat coming off of him.

“Only minor injuries have been reported so far, Captain. I extrapolate some measure of increased chaos and possible further injuries resulting from the fear these explosions will engender.”

Tony and Steve's eyes met, and Bucky almost sympathized with this Crypto moron, and not just because he was pretty sure he'd earned first dibs on punching his lights out.

“You take care of your boy,” Tony said. “I'll do a recon over the city, which should give Pep and Maria just enough time to prepare a statement. Be ready to look heroic in thirty, Cap.”

“He's not my --”

“I'm not his --”

They both cut off their protests as Tony walked away. Steve returned to kneeling at Bucky's side, digging through the medkit for burn ointment and bandages. Bucky was quiet, as the adrenaline faded and the pain came through full-force. Not that it was even that bad, really. He'd burned himself worse cooking.

  


Steve bent over his hand, wrapping it loosely in gauze, a pad of cotton taped over the base of Bucky's hand. He worked gently, methodically, and Bucky was suddenly reminded of Morita. Morita who never went soft on them, never coddled them, but was tender and careful and calm even while he stitched Bucky back together under enemy fire.

He swallowed, drowning for a moment in memories (nostalgia, he reminded himself – the longing for that which can never be again, so why waste time longing?), then came back to himself.

“How's your stomach?” Steve asked, and he helped Bucky pull up his shirt. There was a long red streak, like a very localized sunburn, and Bucky fully intended to ignore it until Steve stopped him and smeared some of the burn ointment on that as well, then wound gauze around Bucky's midriff.

“It'll all be healed in a few days,” Bucky reminded him quietly, and Steve looked up and smiled, and Bucky wanted to kiss him.

The revelation was sudden, total, and utterly impossible to ignore. He wanted to kiss Steve. To say thank you, to make him smile, because he was gorgeous and because Bucky loved him. (Which, they had _always_ loved one another, just for eighty-odd years they had expressed that love primarily by casually insulting one another, and why did he suddenly want to change that?)

“I know,” Steve said, while Bucky wondered what in the hell had happened to him. And there was that Marlon Brando smile, the one that had never changed, and he wanted to kiss Steve _again_ , this time because he was pretty sure it would feel good and his hand hurt so didn't he deserve something nice? “Still.”

Bucky sighed and gave him a little shove. “Go be heroic or whatever, and see if we can keep this from getting blamed on us too.”

“Setting a pretty high standard there, Buck.” Steve stood, but didn't move, instead resting his hand on Bucky's shoulder. “Sure you're okay?”

“Physically, fine. Mentally, about as good as I ever get?” Bucky smiled up at him, his best smile, and he was secretly gratified to see Steve wobble a little. Steve had always liked men just as much as women, and long long ago Bucky had occasionally teased him, flirted with him just to be annoying. Maybe it was time to bring that back. “Steve, I promise I won't melt down. And if I do, JARVIS will be able to tell.”

Steve at least had the good grace to blush, and left with a final pat to Bucky's shoulder. “Don't watch any Adventure Time 'til I'm back at least,” he shot over his shoulder, and closed the door before Bucky could find something to throw at him.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Any feedback you can give is so incredibly welcome, you have no idea. (And because I'm eternally paranoid -- constructive criticism is also always, always welcome!)
> 
> Come hang out with me on tumblr: dietraumerei.tumblr.com


End file.
